“If you’re a leader, it’s not normal to disagree with your boss, so it’s important to advocate for opposing views, right? [Normally] But companies often need new ideas and fresh strategies to grow, so employees sometimes need to be “willing to have discussions” with their bosses, Hastings added.
“In most companies it’s emotionally difficult to disagree with your boss, so we call it cultivating dissent,” he added. “We have managers do things like [ask]: “If you had my job, what are three things you would do differently?”
Mr. Hastings, who served as Netflix’s CEO for more than 20 years before taking over as chairman last year, said that every one to two years, “50 top executives” are asked to take charge of the company. “What would be different?” he said. He used their feedback to experiment with different business strategies, some of which worked.
Strategies that didn’t work served as learning opportunities, he added.
Hastings’ critical feedback came after one of Netflix’s biggest failures: a failed attempt in 2011 to rebrand its DVD-by-mail service to a separate company called Qwickster. It is said that it was.
Customers balked at the idea of breaking up the company. Netflix’s stock price has fallen. Hastings publicly apologized and reversed his decision. Still, he said the Quickster disaster was the “biggest failure” of his career. Because I was taught to seek out more opinions, both positive and negative, before making big decisions.
“Back then, we didn’t do much farming for the opposition,” Hastings said. “I felt like a savior and was convinced that this was the right thing to do…and it turned out that many people had serious doubts, but they didn’t know that other executives had doubts. I didn’t know I was holding it.”
Hastings said the company has instituted a process to solicit candid feedback from dozens of Netflix executives and managers on ongoing “major decisions.”
“We make everyone [submit a rating]10-10, whether they think it’s a smart idea or not,” Hastings said. [with Qwickster], -7, -6, -8 would have been seen in large numbers and that would have been shocking. ”
He added that doing so was a “very positive step” that will help Netflix make stronger decisions going forward. The company’s market capitalization currently stands at $240.2 billion.
The Netflix co-founder isn’t the only business leader to embrace critical feedback from employees. The strategy is reminiscent of former Google and Apple executive Kim Scott’s “radical candor” philosophy.
Hastings cited Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as an example, noting Bezos’ tendency to read reviews from Amazon’s “dissatisfied” customers in order to build a “culture of high standards” at the company. . Bezos also advised people to listen to their critics and carefully decide whether they have a point before making necessary changes.
“Listen, ‘Are they right?’ Or even if they’re not completely right, are there parts that are right that you can draw inspiration from? [and] Then we should change it,” Bezos said at a 2018 conference.
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